Preparation for Leg 10

Conni often claims that her favorite vacation requires only a passport, bikini, and credit card. Yes, but one can't prepare for a multi-month sailing trip in a foreign country with only those items!

I begin preparing for the next leg even while still on the previous leg by assiduously logging any item that I think needs repair or replacement. I begin purchasing as soon as I return home to Alaska. Engine parts I must order from England, and for small parts, I ship them to Alaska and haul them in a blue box, but for larger items, I ship directly to French Polynesia. Our wonderful small walkie-talkie radios failed this past season so I had to do several days research to find replacements and order them. The same procedure holds for all of the items that we must replace since most are obsolete at this point. We had two flashlights and our spotlight fail this year, but the warranty covered their repair/replacement.

All electronics that we purchase must either be intrinsically waterproof or we must purchase covers for them. It's both time consuming and expensive to do so, but failed electronics are of no value to us, and salt water is astoundingly damaging to electronics. A few years ago, Conni's mobile phone failed because of salt air, never having been dunked or wet. I had a dry bag fail and lost a mobile phone, too, so every item must be protected from salt intrusion.

Some of our gear strewn across my office floor. The lime-green notebook at left is our stockpile of boat system information, and the odd black plastic thing above it is the bracket for our Racor primary fuel filter that I fabricated. It will make my filter work considerably easier, or that's the plan. I still need some quick-connect fittings to allow disconnection of the fuel line from the filter.

The full view of our gear, to date. All of this must go back to Wings this next spring! In the blue box are my mask and snorkel and my wonderful sun hat. The rope is a spare that we intend to sell, if possible. The large blue bag in back is a Mast Mate, a set of nylon-webbing steps that attach to the main sail track. One hoists the device usiing the main halyard, then simply climbs the stairs. Our sailing friends, Don and Karen, gave us a great deal on it, as well as the 4 very nice blocks sitting just in front of the Mast Mate.

The large box contains replacement speakers for our failed cockpit speakers. The boxes below are two new pairs of sandals. I seem to blow out a pair every season. To the left is a pair of new stowaway fenders. They can be deflated, rolled up, and stowed in minimal volume, a godsend for a cruising boat. At upper right is a spare bilge pump and the blue handle of a spare dinghy bilge pump is visible.